Letters of Rev. John W. Alvord

In reference to my being here or there or yonder (with Tr. Soc Bureau, or Bank) I have many things to say.

So go back a little—You know that in the ministry my health failed under overmuch brain pressure. I saw it & you did, and a desperate rush was made—first to travel—then the Custom House, then Tract Soc, all relieving me in a measure. The latter as much as any thing until the struggle of controversy began to be very severely felt in the same direction. The war came & I saw two things 1^st that I could at once widen & popularize the work of the American Tract Soc of Boston, and 2^d. that it would give me the outdoor physical exercise for which I was suffering—I will not deny that my Country & the spiritual interests of Soldiers had their wright with me. The result was, that not-withstanding exposure, disease—malaria & I may almost say a thousand forms of death on every side I came back better than I went & at the present moment I have a general soundness of constitution beyond what for the last 25 years I had reason to expect. Had I struggled to remain in the ministry I should, in all prob-ability, long ere this ^have^ been in my grave, as a hope-less & helpless invalid. But you say "The Tract Soc keeps you in the ministry" I shall ^probably stay in^ the ministry, so far as I have ability & strength to fill it. Although nothing so taxes me as even my occasional